


The Fucking Front Door

by SatiricalDraperies



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, BAMF Mal Cobb, Detective Noir, Emotional Infidelity, F/F, F/M, Horror, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inception Big Bang, Inception Big Bang 2020, Multi, Paranormal, Private Investigators, Robert Fischer-centric, Robert's father was not a good man, Swearing, not a lot of paranormal or horror elements but it's there, things are a bit sideways in this world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:46:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25620805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SatiricalDraperies/pseuds/SatiricalDraperies
Summary: “Let me tell you why you are currently enjoying my hospitality, and why you will not be for much longer. You come home from university, shocked by, if not actually grieving, your father’s death. While trying to fill the power void left in his absence, you’ve been… how should I say this? A bit lax, in your security measures? Someone has stolen your trade secrets and you want me to get them back. Sorry, dear, but no. I do not involve myself in gang warfare and likewise, I do not make deals with businessmen.”When Fischer Morrow becomes a victim of corporate espionage, Robert calls upon notorious underground private investigators Miles & Associates to help him recover the company secrets. Featuring earnest scholar Robert; brilliant detective Mal; young, pretty, and not-so-innocent Ariadne; intelligence agent Yusuf; con artist Eames; frighteningly competent Arthur; and the suspicious absence of Dom Cobb.
Relationships: Ariadne/Mal Cobb, Mal Cobb/Ariadne/Robert Fischer, Mal Cobb/Robert Fischer, past Ariadne/OFC, past Mal Cobb/Dom Cobb
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020, Inception Big Bang 2020





	The Fucking Front Door

**Author's Note:**

> I was lucky enough to work with the incredible @rainbowcolored7 on this project - [look at this incredible art!](https://rainbowcolored7.tumblr.com/post/625220349332701184/my-art-for-bayta-darell-inception-big-bang-2020)

Robert wouldn’t be here, standing in the rain on the wrong side of town, if he had any other options. But he can’t go to the police, and he can’t go to his father’s usual detective, and rumor has it that Miles & Associates are the best. 

He needs the best.

A steady stream of water has leaked under his popped jacket collar and the rain runs off his face onto the clean pressed shirt underneath. His tie is loose and his hair is a mess and his shoes, which were just shined that morning, are covered with mud and other things Robert doesn’t want to think about.

He bangs on the door again.

“We’re closed,” a woman’s voice calls out. 

“My name is Robert Fischer,” he says. “I want to hire your services.”

The door opens.

* * *

“Your father died recently, yes?”

“One month to the day,” Robert replies, sipping the tea that Mal’s pretty, young assistant pressed into his cold, shaking hands. 

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Mal says. 

“Thank you.” The words are hollow and Robert is tired of repeating them, but Mal seems equally ready to move on to the business at hand.

“You are running his company now, then.”

“That’s the problem,” Robert sighs.

“No.”

He looks up from the tea leaves sinking to the bottom of his mug. “What do you mean, no? I haven’t even told you why I’m here.”

“No? Let me tell you why you are currently enjoying my hospitality, and why you will not be for much longer. You come home from university, shocked by, if not actually grieving, your father’s death. While trying to fill the power void left in his absence, you’ve been… how should I say this? A bit lax, in your security measures? Someone has stolen your trade secrets and you want me to get them back. Sorry, dear, but no. I do not involve myself in gang warfare and likewise, I do not make deals with businessmen.”

Mal is right about what has happened to him, down to every last detail. He supposes she wouldn’t be a very good detective if she had gotten it wrong, but it still hurts how directly she has hit the nail on the head. 

“Then why did you let me in?”

“I will not catch your thief, but I know people who will.”

“Thank—”

“Do not be so hasty with your thanks, dear,” she cuts him off. “You haven’t met my associates yet.”

* * *

“Yusuf!” Ariadne calls out as she walks right past the bouncers at the door to the restaurant. Robert follows her like a lost duckling, feeling more than a little out of place. It’s not that he didn’t spend much of his time at university exploring the city’s bars, but his friends were all equally wealthy. Their definition of “seedy” wouldn’t even begin to describe the restaurant Ariadne has brought him to.

“Is that Ariadne? Nice of you to finally stop by,” Yusuf (presumably) says from behind the bar. 

“You know how it is,” she sits down on a stool across from him. “I’ve been working with Mal.”

“You two finally moved in together? Congratulations.”

“This is Robert, by the way,” Ariadne nods her head at him. He sits down next to her, hoping he looks less awkward than he feels.

“Nice to meet you,” he says. Yusuf shakes his outstretched hand. 

“How is everyone?” Ariadne asks once Yusuf has pulled out some glasses and poured them drinks from an unlabeled bottle. The contents don’t sit right, but it could just be too early in the morning for Robert to make sense of the swirling liquid. 

“Oh,” Yusuf says non-committedly. “You know.”

“I haven’t heard from anyone in months. I suppose no news is good news if no one’s been arrested, but… you know.”

“There are things worse than arrest. I know.” 

They both drink to that. Robert tries to think of a way to steer the conversation towards the matter at hand without offending either one. Did Ariadne really just bring him on a social call? Also, he’s more than a little concerned that their friends get arrested that frequently. Maybe he shouldn’t have gone to Miles & Associates for help. 

“You look worried, Robert,” Yusuf says. “What can I help you with?”

“Like you don’t already know,” Ariadne scoffs.

“I want to hear it from Robert.”

What _does_ he want? To get the stolen files back, obviously, but to what length is he willing to go for this goal?

“Something of value to me has been lost,” he finally says. “I want to get it back.”

“I know what you have lost, Mr. Fischer.” Robert didn’t remember giving his last name. “I can’t get it for you, but I can give you information.”

“What do you have for us, Yusuf?” Ariadne asks. Her eyes are wide and she’s on the edge of her stool, like she’s expecting a show.

Yusuf smiles. “Let me see.”

He lifts his hand and a woman wearing a sharply cut suit comes over. Yusuf whispers something into her ear and she smirks. The woman pulls out a piece of paper seemingly from nowhere, writes a short message, then slides it down the bar to a rumpled older gentleman that Robert could have sworn wasn’t sitting there before. He tucks the paper inside his worn out coat before tipping his hat to Yusuf and leaving the restaurant

“Mr. Eames will be in touch with you soon,” the woman tells Ariadne. “Would you like me to keep you company? Your friend’s welcome to join us.”

“Sorry Liv,” Ariadne says. “We’ve got work to do. Maybe some other time.”

Liv frowns. “You’re still with Mal, then.”

“I know you don’t like her, but she’s changed. It’s a good life. I’m happy.”

“I make good wages here,” Liv says. “You could have finished that fancy degree you were working on.”

“It’s a good life,” Ariadne repeats. “Yusuf?”

Liv narrows her eyes at the clear dismissal and stalks away from the bar.

“Well, reports are still coming in,” Yusuf says. Robert wonders if he felt as uncomfortable during that last conversation as he did. “I don’t have eyes on the inside. The old man was a real stickler for background checks. I tried sending a couple guys in; they got caught. Tried to turn a couple, too, janitors and the like, but they either refused flat out or were fired the instant they tried to enter the building. Damn impressive security.”

He gives Robert a nod, like he had anything to do with it. The business was always his father’s domain. Sometimes it felt like his father only let him see the business to compare him to it. The stocks are rising; why aren’t your grades? The offices are clean; why isn’t your room? My company is perfect; why isn’t my son?

The old bastard.

“What I do know is this: A man entered the front doors of the Fischer Morrow offices two days ago. He didn’t work for Fischer Morrow and as far as I know, he had no official reason to be in the building. A half hour later he left with a briefcase, presumably filled to the brim with important top secret information. Security didn’t stop him going in or out—wish I knew his trick.”

“What can you tell me about this man?” Robert asks, leaning forward and resting his forearms on the bar. 

“Not much,” Yusuf shrugs. “None of my people could I. D. him and the only photograph we’ve got covers most of his face. The agent tracked him to the sewers but lost him. It’s a real maze down there.”

He pulls the black and white photograph out from an impossibly deep shelf under the bar (did Ariadne let him know they were coming? or is that where he normally keeps this sort of thing?) and passes it to Robert. 

Robert shakes his head. He has no idea who the man is. His face is turned away, only the profile sticking out. It’s blurry too. Whoever this is, he was certainly in a rush.

“Let me see that,” Ariadne demands, leaning over Robert to take a better look at the photograph. He passes it to her and turns to gauge her reaction. 

“It can’t be,” she says, all the blood flowing out of her face. “He’s dead.”

“Who’s dead?” Robert asks.

“We need to go,” she says, standing up and retying her scarf tight around her neck. “Thanks for everything, Yusuf.”

“Send Mal my love,” he yells after her, but even under the friendly words, Robert can hear his voice shaking.

* * *

Ariadne takes the photograph with her. 

“Don’t tell Mal,” she says. 

“Why not?” but already Robert is learning that there is much more to Mal and Ariadne’s relationship than meets the eye. 

When they arrive back at Mal’s place from Yusuf’s, Mal is waiting for them. She kisses Ariadne’s cheek and takes her coat before Ariadne heads upstairs. It isn’t until Ariadne is fully out of sight that Mal even acknowledges Robert’s presence.

“Come,” she says, and Robert cannot help but to follow her. There is tea waiting for him in the drawing room. It is still hot. 

Mal does not talk to him. She just sits there, watching him sip her tea and sit on her couch and act like he belongs in her home. She is unsettling. Robert wishes she would talk and hopes that she won’t. She speaks about him like she knows him better than he knows himself. It rattles him and shakes him to the bone. Is he so predictable that a near-stranger can see so deeply into his core?

“He entered through the front door,” Robert finally says. “How could he enter through the front door?”

“Who?” Mal asks. She already knows, of course.

“The man who robbed me. He entered through the front door. The fucking front door! Like he owns the goddamn place.”

“Doesn’t he?”

Robert stops.

“He has your secrets, yes? He has your attention? It may be your name on the papers but it is his name which you seek. His name that could make or break your future and his name that controls you. This man does not just own the building, or the fucking front door. He owns you, Robert. You must admit this.”

“Like hell he does,” and if Robert wasn’t pissed off before, he sure is now. “He doesn’t fucking own me!”

Mal sits there, the hint of a smile on her lips. “What does it mean to own something?”

Is this a rhetorical question? Robert waits for her to finish. It becomes clear to him that she will not answer herself. She expects an answer from him.

“To control it,” Robert says. “When you own something you have complete control over it.”

“So you see,” Mal says. “This man can destroy your company. He controls it, so he owns it.”

 _Fuck._ Robert sets his tea down and leans his forehead on his hands. He has no leverage in this situation. This still doesn’t answer the question of how the man was able to enter the building and get out with the files but at least now Robert has a better understanding of the stakes. He’ll have to be careful. One wrong move and the man will destroy the files. Destroy the company. Destroy _Robert_.

“Can I ask what was in the files he stole?” Mal asks her question like a surgeon cuts open a patient… No. If Robert is being honest, he doesn’t feel so much like a patient lying open on a surgery table so much as a captive shredded to pieces in a torture chamber.

“No,” he says harshly. “It isn’t important.”

If Robert is _really_ being honest, it isn’t that the files are unimportant so much as he has no idea what they contain. His father was a secretive man and these files were his greatest secret of all.

* * *

Mr. Eames is not who Robert was expecting. He’s wearing paisley, for one, and has one of those horribly generic faces for another. Robert’s always been good with faces (a useful skill for creating allies and maintaining partnerships) but he’s certain that he would never be able to identify Mr. Eames in a crowd, even if he is wearing that ghastly paisley.

“I tracked your man,” Mr. Eames tells Ariadne. Robert is walking behind them. The sidewalk isn’t big enough for all three of them.

“And?” she asks. 

“He’s in Limbo.”

Ariadne stops. “Fucking Limbo? You’re fucking with me, Eames.”

“Wish I was, darling. Does your friend know about Limbo?” Eames nods back towards Robert.

“He doesn’t need to.”

“Ariadne,” Eames argues. “If you’re going to be involved in this, he needs to know about Limbo.”

Robert doesn’t speak. He doesn’t think it would help his case.

“If Mal finds out—” 

So there’s another secret Ariadne is keeping from Mal. First the photograph and now Limbo.

“Relax,” Eames says. “She’s not getting involved in this one, right?”

“No, but you know Mal.”

“She may hide the truth sometimes, but she never goes back on her word.”

“If Mal finds out that _he’s_ involved and that he’s gone to Limbo?” Ariadne stares Eames down. Robert is thankful he’s not the target of her glare. “She won’t have a choice.”

“Neither do I,” Robert butts in. “Mal may not be involved, but I am. If our man’s in Limbo, I need to know what that is.”

Ariadne sighs. Robert feels a little bad that he’s making her share this, but it’s no longer a personal matter. As soon as the thief escaped to Limbo, it became an essential part of Robert’s case. He needs those files back. His father didn’t protect anything as much as he protected those damn files. They must be important. With them, maybe Robert can be in charge of the company in more than just name.

“Limbo is a building,” she says bluntly. Robert waits for her to continue. When it’s clear that she has said all that she is willing to say on the subject, he looks to Eames.

“It’s a building, sure,” he says, putting an arm around Robert’s shoulders and gesturing with the other hand. “But it’s not just any building. Trick staircases, doors that open into thin air, trap doors, walls that move… Limbo is an architect’s dream and everyone else’s nightmare. It’s the perfect place to hide if you don’t want to be found.”

“Brilliant,” Robert says, completely unironically. He’s no longer thinking as his father’s son. His father’s son hates this place. Robert the university student, though, Robert the dreamer: he loves it.

“It really is,” Eames agrees. “And our darling Ariadne here is the one who built it.”

“Designed it,” she mutters. “Not that it really makes a difference.”

Robert looks at her in awe. Now here’s a side to her that he never would have guessed.

“I didn’t know you were an architect.”

“I’m a lot of things,” she says, shrugging it off. “So he’s in Limbo. I’ll get Yusuf to send some people to watch the exits. It may take a while to find him in there, but it’s doable.”

“If you’re going into Limbo, you’ll need Arthur.”

Ariadne rolls her eyes. 

“No, thank you.”

“It’s dangerous,” Eames says. “Even for you. Especially since you’ll have Robert along with you. Arthur can look after him for you. No offense, Robert, but you don’t look like you have much experience with this sort of thing.”

“None taken,” he chuckles. “It’s up to you, Ariadne, but Eames is right. I don’t have experience with any of this.”

Ariadne stops and looks at him. She sizes him up. Robert feels like one of the dusty old slides in the biology lab at university, like he’s some old dead bug under a microscope.

“Alright,” she says to Eames. “You win. Where’s Arthur?”

* * *

“Who are these people?” Robert asks Mal. It’s late at night and she’s joined him in the drawing room again. It’s become a bit of a tradition of theirs. Mal doesn’t always talk, but she still sits there with him, sipping her tea and providing a sounding board for Robert’s scheming. 

“Hmm?” she asks.

“Yusuf, Eames, and now Arthur. They’re all so familiar with Ariadne but at the same time it’s like none of them ever actually see each other. It’s always ‘how have you been’, ‘it’s been so long’, ‘what have you been up to’, like they don’t keep in touch.”

“They don’t.”

“And you know them too.”

“I knew them,” she says. It’s a subtle difference that Robert picks up on.

“What happened?” he asks.

“My ex-husband.”

“I thought you and Ariadne were… you know,” he breaks off. “From the way the woman at Yusuf’s was talking about you—”

“We are,” Mal smiles. “But I did have a husband once. I loved him and hated him in equal measures. We had some good memories together but memories are not enough to keep a relationship going. Ariadne and I had been dancing around each other for months before he died. I cried at his funeral, but that night was one of the most joyful of my life.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Robert says automatically. “I think?”

“Don’t be,” Mal laughs. “By that point Dom was nearly unrecognizable as the man he had once been. I wish it had been different, for all of our sake’s. His and mine and Ariadne’s and Arthur’s, mostly.”

“Who is Arthur?”

“Arthur was Dom’s closest confidant in all matters. He knew things that even I never heard about. It was like they were two halves of the same mind. Arthur had been working with my husband for years before I met him. Even once they added on Eames and Yusuf and, much later, Ariadne, it was still very much the two of them at the center of it all.”

“What work did they do?” Robert asks. Maybe he’s prying, but Mal doesn’t seem to mind.

“Nothing I can legally tell you about,” she raises an eyebrow. 

In Robert’s mind, there are two ways he can read that statement. One: they worked for an undercover government organization, some sort of MI6 type deal that Mal can’t legally talk about. Two: there’s nothing _legal_ that she can talk about. He’s hoping for option number one, but he’s getting an impression that the reality falls much closer to the latter.

“Well then. Thank you for the tea and conversation, but it’s getting late. I should get going.”

“Of course,” Mal says. “You know you are always welcome to stay with us.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose,” he says, pulling on his coat.

“You wouldn’t be.” Mal places her hand on the small of his back as she walks him to the door. “Would you like to change your mind?”

“I—” Robert stammers. “I really need to go.”

She smiles, but there’s sadness in her eyes.

* * *

“Mal likes you,” Ariadne remarks to Robert as they wait at the train station for Arthur to arrive.

“Do _you_?” he asks. Maybe it’s the additional cup of black coffee or the cold bite of the wind, but he’s feeling extra bold today.

“What do you think?”

He doesn’t really know what he thinks. Ariadne is innovative and observant and completely unexpected. Robert doesn’t know what she thinks of him, but he certainly thinks very highly of her.

“Look,” she nods towards the crowd disembarking the 9:15 train. Even with the crowd, there’s only one man that could possibly be Arthur. 

Arthur walks with smooth strides. He glides through the throngs of ordinary people without sparing them a single look. His coat floats behind him and his gray three-piece suit is perfectly tailored. His hair is gelled to mathematical perfection and his eyes are sharp. He looks like the sort of man that could get them through hell and back.

He only needs to get them through Limbo, but Robert has a sneaking suspicion that of the two, Limbo may be worse.

“How is Mal?” Arthur asks, sitting down next to Ariadne on the bench. His voice is as polished as his appearance.

“Good,” she says. “ No thanks to you. Why haven’t you talked to her yet?”

“What is there to say?”

“I’m sorry? I’m here for you? Do you want to go out and get ugly drunk together? Anything would be better than dropping out of her life like you did.”

Robert has never seen Ariadne this mad. She’s been irritated and frustrated and impatient around him but now this is pure anger running through her.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur says. Robert can’t tell if he’s actually apologetic or not. Everything Arthur says sounds vaguely acerbic. 

“Tell that to Mal.”

“If she will listen.”

“She will.”

The 8:55 train boards and leaves the station. 

“Eames mentioned Limbo,” Arthur says. “You’re really going back there?”

“Robert’s chasing a thief,” Ariadne explains. It doesn’t even start to explain anything, but maybe it’s enough for Arthur. “If our thief’s in Limbo, we have no choice but to follow.”

“Whoever he is, he can’t last in there forever. You could starve him out. Flush him out with smoke.”

“I—” Ariadne corrects herself. “Robert needs to face him. It’s not just the man himself. He has something of value that Robert needs returned safely.”

“It’s Limbo, then,” Arthur says. Robert may be imagining the change in inflection, but he sounds resigned to the idea of Limbo. “I need a bit of time to prepare. Two days?”

Ariadne nods. 

“Two days.”

* * *

“Have you ever been to Limbo?” Robert asks Mal. She has a robe pulled around her now, but she answered the door in just a thin slip. He must have woken her up. It’s late enough that he should have been asleep too. Still, his mind is running a mile a minute with nightmares of Limbo. Anytime he gets close to drifting off, the floor tilts or folds in on itself or breaks apart into a thousand stabbing pieces all aimed right at him. 

“It’s just a building,” Mal says. 

“You’ve been?”

“Once, a long time ago.” Robert wants to ask more but something in her tone warns him against it. “Why are you here, Robert?”

“I’m sorry,” he says. It’s instinctive.

“I told you that you were always welcome, yes? That does not change late at night.”

“I’m here because I’m scared,” he says, only a little reluctantly. “You’re right. Limbo is just a building. I guess I’m scared of what I’ll find in it. My father loved those his business, loved those files more than he loved me and I never knew what was inside of them. I used to imagine that he kept photographs of us, of our family, inside that safe. Of course he didn’t, and I eventually grew up, but some part of me kept hoping that he loved me more than he showed. It wouldn’t change the way he acted in life but at least I’d get some closure.”

“Come here,” Mal says. She draws him into a hug. He can feel her breathing beneath her silk robe and focuses on the steady in— out— in— out— in—

And then he’s crying, sobbing, holding onto her like she’s his last hope. 

“There exists nothing in Limbo which you do not bring in with you,” she whispers. “You must leave your hopes at the door.”

* * *

It’s a gray morning. Not just the sky, although that is completely clouded over, felted in bands of light and dark, but Arthur’s suit and Ariadne’s scarf and Mal’s eyes as she wished him good luck before he left last night. 

Everything is gray.

Limbo is gray.

It’s concrete, but not a Brutalist boxy structure like Robert might expect from the material. Limbo is full of life but at the same time sad, vaguely nostalgic though he can’t figure out why. Maybe it’s the empty flower boxes or the third floor balcony or the ambiguously shaped door knocker… 

Maybe it’s the way that Ariadne grabs his hand and squeezes until Robert thinks his bones will break.

“Let’s go,” Arthur says. “I don’t have all day.”

“He does,” Ariadne mutters. “All of tomorrow, too.”

Robert stifles a laugh at that and the tension’s broken. When Ariadne unlocks the door and Arthur shines his flashlight inside, he doesn’t even hesitate to follow them in.

From the outside, Limbo is a twisted version of a townhouse, nestled in the heart of the city. On the inside, it doesn’t do much to contradict that first impression. Initially Robert doesn’t see anything wrong with the front hall laid out before him (coatrack, doormat, umbrella stand) but then he starts to notice the little things (mousetraps like base molding, wallpaper like leather, beams criss-crossing overhead with no solid ceiling in sight) that tense his muscles and set his nerves on edge. 

“This isn’t right,” Ariadne says.

“Understatement of the century,” Robert snorts.

“No,” Robert can feel the disdain running off Arthur’s tongue and infecting every word that leaves his mouth. Even if he didn’t already speak in a monotone caustic tone, his voice would still be horribly derisive. “She means that it’s wrong in all the _wrong_ ways. Someone’s definitely been here.”

“We knew that, right? So this is a good sign?” Robert’s really pushing it here. He might have been able to get past the intentionally disturbing setup if he knew Ariadne was behind each and every creaky floorboard. Now that she’s on edge too? Robert is one delusion away from breaking down entirely.

“Keep moving,” Arthur says. He points his flashlight around the room, looking down the hall and up the stairs. “Which way, Ariadne?”

“Up,” she says, almost immediately. “He’s going to the attic.”

Robert doesn’t question how she knows that; he doesn’t think he wants to hear the answer.

“Up,” he repeats, trying to sound more confident than he feels. “What’s in the attic?”

“Nothing,” Ariadne says. “It’s just an attic.”

“Is there something I need to be prepared for?” Arthur asks.

“No. It’s just an attic.”

They keep walking upstairs. The staircase moves in right angles around the outside of the building in a square spiral. Every now and again they reach a landing and Robert can catch a glimpse of whatever lies on that particular floor. He sees a textile factory, a dance studio, a swimming pool, a solid brick wall.

“Keep going,” Ariadne says. 

Robert hurries past. 

“How much further?” Arthur asks. 

“Only a few more floors.”

“What should we expect?”

“It’s just an attic,” Ariadne repeats. “It’s just an attic.”

It doesn’t seem that way but Robert doesn’t say anything. Ariadne has made it clear she won’t tell them what’s up there and her tone of voice is getting more and more frantic each time Arthur asks. It must be the man from the photograph that’s making her feel this way, right? He’s the only unknown in this building. Who is he? Who is he to _Ariadne_?

“Keep going,” she says.

The stairs end at a solid concrete wall extending as far as Robert can see to the left and right, far beyond the scope of the building. He looks up. Nothing but concrete as far as the eye can see, like the wall is bending over in an optical illusion, surrounding them in a monolithic mass.

“It’s just an attic,” Ariadne says. She presses her hand flat to the wall in front of them and a section breaks away, revealing an open doorway. 

Robert tries to look around her to see the other side, but it’s all just fog clouding his vision.

“Keep going,” he says.

“It’s just an attic,” Arthur says sardonically. “What sort of beast should I expect to find in this garden?”

Ariadne doesn’t answer. She’s already pushed on into the mists.

* * *

The attic isn’t _just_ an attic, but Robert could have told you that the first time Ariadne uttered the phrase. As the mist clears (and it is real mist, not a cleverly placed fog machine) he starts to see the city in the distance. The attic opens up into the roof, a concrete expanse that somehow seems so much larger than the footprint of the building’s bottom floor. 

More monolithic structures rise up from the ground, creating a partial roof. At one point the landscaping must have been beautiful, but it’s clear that no one’s been to Limbo in quite some time. The bushes sprawl across the path and vines climb up the walls and columns. 

“This is marvelous,” Robert tells Ariadne.

“Stay here,” Arthur says. “I’m going to investigate. You really think your man’s up here? I would think that he’d stick closer to the ground level. Easier escape, and all that.”

“Unless he had a helicopter to pick him up.”

They both look at Robert.

“That’s what I might do,” he says, suddenly self-conscious. “No one would see him leave unless they were watching closely for a helicopter. And it’s like Arthur said: there’s plenty of places to hide lower down in the building. We could spend weeks tearing every inch apart while he flew away laughing at us. It’s a possibility, that’s all.”

“You make a good point,” Arthur concedes. “Ariadne, do you know who it is? Anything you can tell me about him could help us find him faster. Assuming there wasn’t a helicopter pick-up.”

“I knew him personally,” Ariadne says. Robert notes the past tense. “There’s no helicopter. He’s here.”

She leaves the men behind to keep walking deeper into Limbo. Arthur looks at Robert quizzically. He just shrugs. If Ariadne doesn’t want to reveal the culprit’s identity then nothing Robert or Arthur say will make her. It’s one of the qualities Robert most admires about her, but right now he wishes she were just a bit less strong-willed. 

“I trust you,” Arthur says to Ariadne, but his voice is even more reserved than usual. Robert is left questioning the extent of his sincerity.

“Split up. We’ll find him faster that way.” Clearly Ariadne didn’t hear Arthur’s hesitation. That, or she doesn’t care.

Robert doesn’t really want to leave the perceived safety of Ariadne and Arthur’s company but before he can raise any concerns, the two of them have disappeared back into the fog. He shrugs and presses on straight ahead, following the tallest of the concrete walls in front of him. It’s barely taller than him but it’s unsettling nonetheless to not be able to see over it.

As he continues further through Limbo, the fog becomes thicker. The wall on his right starts to crumble down to the ground until it’s more of an aberration in the smooth floor than anything. The trees, previously well-trimmed and intentional parts of the roof’s landscape, are placed more irregularly. They aren’t so close together as to resemble a forest but Robert still feels like anything could be lurking behind them, hidden in a maze of clouds and greenery. 

He reaches the edge of the roof. From here he can see the whole city and beyond, the railway tracks leaving like veins from the heart. The fog ebbs and flows through the city like breath. 

“Ariadne?” he calls out. “Arthur?”

No response. 

“It’s just an attic,” he says out loud, feeling a little foolish talking to himself but needing reassurance nonetheless. 

It’s just an attic.

Right?

A train roars past behind him and Robert spins around to look. It’s big and black with red and gold lettering that Robert can’t make out. The pistons are pumping like a sped-up motion picture and the whistle sounds like fifty motorcycles revving up all at once. Smoke bellows out of the engine and the air becomes impossibly thicker. 

The train passes.

The air clears.

A man stands on the other side of the tracks. His back is to Robert and his head is bowed, but it’s clear that this is the man from the photograph. He’s wearing the same suit and carrying the same briefcase. 

“Welcome to Limbo,” he says. “My name is Dominick Cobb.”

“You’re Mal’s ex-husband,” Robert says, finally putting the pieces together. He will deal with the contradiction of speaking to a dead man later, when his head is not reeling from the contradiction of a train on top of a building. It’s funny what the mind will accept and what it will reject. All-knowing men and invisible men and clockwork men, but the line is drawn at dead men.

And yet.

Dom turns around to face Robert. His face is twisted into a scowl.

“Is that it?” he asks. “Is my memory defined by her?”

“Not entirely,” Robert says. He isn’t entirely sure how to negotiate with a dead man. Subtlety may not be the best move. Best to establish his motive now and work out a strategy as they go along. “You have something that belongs to me.”

Dom smiles wider than his face should allow. “Let’s take a walk.”

They head in the direction that the train came from, following the tracks on opposite sides. Robert can’t take his eyes off of Dom. He does not move like a man risen from the dead. 

“I used to think that your father was an interesting man. Now I see that he is nothing compared to you. _He_ would have never come after me, not to this place.”

“You didn’t give me much of a choice.”

“There is always a choice.”

“Not when you steal from me.”

Dom laughs. “You have no idea what is in these files, do you?”

Robert doesn’t answer, but that’s as telling as anything. 

“It’s a device,” Dom explains, talking down to Robert like he’s still a child. “Your father’s dream.”

“I didn’t think he was capable of dreaming,” Robert says, trying to hide his contempt and failing. “Tell me, how do _you_ know about his dreams?”

“I helped to build this one.”

Robert starts to hear a rumble in the distance. Another train? 

“While other companies were looking into hypnotism, your father saw the true potential of the mind. A way to infiltrate dreams, to extract information… A way to insert ideas.”

Oh. So it’s some hippy-dippy bullshit, the ramblings of an older man trying to make sense of the world before he left it.

“The device worked,” Dom says. “I know. I built it and then I tested it. Your father’s resources, combined with my talents… We had created something extraordinary.”

“Enough with the theatrics,” Robert says, growing tired of Dom’s elaborate (but almost certainly false) yarn. “Hand over the files.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“The device is strong,” Dom says, looking off into the distance. “Too strong. It could destroy everything.”

And that’s it for Robert. He’s had enough of listening to one dead man talk about another. It’s time to call this bluff.

“You’re lying.”

“No,” Dom says, affronted. “The effects were astonishing.”

“Not about that. Well, not only that,” he corrects himself. “About it all. You never even worked for my father. There is no device.”

The rumbling of the distant train grows louder.

“Are you willing to take that gamble?”

“I may not be the businessman my father was, but I know how to take a risk.”

“Very well, then,” Dom says. “I’ll just leave the briefcase with Mal and we can both be off.”

With Mal? What does he mean by—

Oh.

Mal is tied to the train tracks up ahead, ropes all over her body. Her head rests sideways on the rail. She won’t even see the train coming.

Robert calls out her name in desperation. She doesn’t even blink in acknowledgement. “What have you _done_ to her?”

He wants to strangle Dom, wants to kill him again, wants to send him someplace he can’t come back from. But the train tracks are an impassable boundary separating them and Robert is stranded on his side. He can’t reach Dom and he can’t reach the briefcase and try as he might, he can’t reach Mal either. Her eyes are hazy and unfocused. Even if she _were_ facing the other way, she still wouldn’t see the train coming.

And it is coming. Robert can feel the ground shaking underneath his feet.

“The files, Robert.” Dom is still talking. Why is he still talking?

“I don’t give a fuck about your damn device!” Robert yells. “Help me untie Mal!”

“She’ll be fine,” Dom says nonchalantly. He talks like he doesn’t care about her. He talks like _she_ isn’t real. “That is, as long as you take the files.”

“Do you want me to have them or not?”

“Build the device,” Dom urges. “Destroy the world.”

“The device doesn’t exist.”

“Not yet.”

Robert can see the train now, just a black speck in the distance, but it’s growing larger with every passing moment.

“I don’t want it,” he tells Dom. “Device or no, I don’t want the files. I am not my father.”

“Have it your way,” Dom says and throws the briefcase on to the train tracks before turning and walking away. He moves like a man risen from the dead; he moves like a man returning to the dead.

The train is bearing down now and Robert doesn’t know which way to go. Mal: still floating in a kind of lifeless limbo. The briefcase: an equal and opposite distance away taunting him with the infinite possibilities of an unopened box. There is no time to go to both. 

He can hear the metal wheels grinding against the tracks. The train will not stop.

Robert runs to Mal. There is no choice, not really. The ropes fight him for a moment before falling away. He scoops her up in his arms and pulls her away from the tracks right as the train storms by. 

The smoke blinds him and for a moment he is left to rely on everything else: the feel of Mal’s breath against his skin and the rhythmic thumping of her heartbeat (Mal is alive), the smell of steam and the constant grinding of pistons (the train travels on), the faint sound of… paper rustling? 

(His father’s greatest secret is lost.)

The train passes, as it does. The smoke clears and Robert can see once more. He doesn’t look at the briefcase or at Dom’s retreating figure off in the distance. He doesn’t follow the path of the train or the origin from which it came. 

He looks at Mal. She blinks and rubs her eyes, slowly coming back to herself. Robert helps her stand on shaky legs and together they walk into the smoke and out of Limbo.

* * *

Robert doesn’t read the newspaper. He doesn’t have much time for it between studying for his linguistics degree and helping Mal and Ariadne with the stacks of paperwork involved in running a detective agency. Mal’s place is a bit tight for the three of them, but they make it work. It’s not much, but it’s his home now.

He doesn’t read the newspaper. If he did, he would read that the Fischer Morrow Enterprises were under investigation for manufacturing invasive cognitive technology. He would read that conman and former Fischer Morrow employee Dominick Cobb had faked his own death and was currently standing on trial for his crimes. He would read that the empire his father had built was falling and that it was Robert’s fault for abandoning the company in its time of need.

But Robert doesn’t read the newspaper.


End file.
